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Jānis Vucāns, President of the BSPC, addressed the 46 th PABSEC General Assembly in Bucharest, emphasizing the importance of inter-parliamentary cooperation against the background of difficult challenges, such as combating terrorism, the current situation of refugees and the crisis in Ukraine.. Since the fight against terrorism was a central topic of this conference Mr Vucāns pointed out that “our fight against terrorism is not only about defending our security but also about our fundamental values, namely freedom, democracy and human rights. It is therefore very important, that against this background parliamentarians from different regions come together and stand together as friends, and that this issue is not just discussed at the level of the EU and national states. In this current period of time, cooperation at parliamentary level has intrinsic value because such cooperation involves the elected representatives of the citizens of the participating countries.” Referring to the topic of the refugees he emphasised: “It is important that we strengthen our dialogue on this issue in Europe also on a regional level. South East Europe is greatly affected by the overwhelming numbers of refugees transiting through some of its countries, just as the Baltic Sea Region is affected as well. I would like to mention, that the Baltic Sea Region is home both to some of the most important actors and facilitators in the conflict in Syria, as well as to those countries, which now accommodate significant amount of the Syrian refugees. The Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference believes in the utmost importance of intense cooperation and good, peaceful neighbourliness. This includes also the necessity of strengthening the cooperation between such inter-parliamentary organisations like PABSEC and BSPC.” With regard to the situation in Ukraine Mr Vucāns informed about this year’s resolution in which BSPC welcomed “the agreements concluded in Minsk, which may lead to a peaceful solution of the conflict…” and insisted on their “thorough and unwavering implementation and appeal to the parties to provide comprehensive support to the work of and in the OSCE.” Mr Vucāns´referred also to the 24 th BSPC conference in Rostock and the newly-launched Working Group on Sustainable Tourism to illustrate how the BSPC and PABSEC can cooperate in a range of important policy fields, including tourism. Concluding his remarks, he asserted that the BSPC strives to drive concrete cooperation in the region, ultimately contributing to a safe and secure Europe, and is therefore interested in approaches by other regions to regional cooperation.

The BSPC Working Group on Sustainable Tourism held its inaugural meeting in Rostock on 13 November. The meeting was chaired by the newly-elected WG Vice-Chairman Sara Kemetter from the Aland parliament. The meeting furthermore appointed Andre Sepp from the Estonian parliament as second Vice Chairman of the group. Expert presentations were held on opportunities of sustainable tourism in the Baltic Sea Region, an overview of the development of the Baltic Sea Tourism Forum, and the priority area “Tourism” in the context of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region. The members were provided a comprehensive overview of the topic by the German Economics Institute for Tourism (dwif). The expert underlined the environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainability in tourism and provided the meeting with a host of examples for demand for sustainable products and services in tourism. However, the expert did stress that there are obstacles to overcome, e.g. additional costs, lack of added-value and/or comfort, incomplete information or non-reliable sustainability logos. Regarding existing approaches in the Baltic Sea Region with a view to sustainable tourism, the expert highlighted the heterogeneity. The expert called on the members to find a common understanding of sustainable tourism. This point was further discussed by the second expert who briefed the WG on milestones of the Baltic Sea Tourism Forum, which among others strives to identify common approaches in tourism in the Baltic Sea Region. Lastly, the WG was briefed on the priority area “Tourism” in the context of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, which aims to establish the Baltic Sea Region as a common and coherent tourism destination. A vivid discussion ensued, among others regarding the profitability of sustainable tourism, incentives for going green, the branding of the Baltic Sea as a tourist destination, and the inclusion of the private sector into tourism strategies. The presentations can be retrieved on the WG webpage. The meeting was primarily devoted to a reconfirmation of the WG mandate and deliberations over its scope of work, priorities and mode of work.

The highest Executive Committee of the BSPC, led by BSPC President Jānis Vucāns, met for the first time under the new Presidency on the premises of the Latvian parliament on 6 November. Delegations from Åland-Islands, the Baltic Assembly, Denmark, Estonia, the European Parliament, Finland, the German Bundestag, Hamburg, Latvia, Lithuania, the Nordic Council, the Russian Federation and Sweden participated in the meeting. The content of the work focused on the follow-up of the resolution of the 24 th annual conference, which took place in Rostock from 30 August to 1 September 2015, and the implementation of the BSPC resolutions. The meeting furthermore discussed the current refugee crisis in Europe, highlighting the urgency of the problem and exposing different approaches in response to the situation. At the beginning of the Standing Committee Meeting the Parliamentary Secretary of the Latvian Ministry of Education, Mr Edvards Smiltens, President of the Council of the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mr Aigars Rostovskis, and the Special Representative of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly for the Baltic Sea Area, Mr Jurgen Klimke, addressed the SC members in a round of presentations. Mr Smiltens spoke about Latvians priorities in education, most importantly in vocational training and education (VET). Latvia deems the strengthening of the prestige of VET a priority, as VET is part of the innovation system. Ultimately, it should be the goal of higher education to enhance the creativity and entrepreneurship of students to become entrepreneurs, create jobs, provide new products and services and thus expand the national as well as global labor market. Mr Rostovskis later added in his contribution that the Baltic Sea Region should position itself as a global hub for education and innovation, both in order to provide students with the skills to start their own businesses and consequentially to further the prosperity and wellbeing in the region. German MP Jurgen Klimke talked about his work as Special Representative of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly for the Baltic Sea Area and expressed the willingness on the part of the OSCE to cooperate with the BSPC as a partner of similar interests.

Jānis Vucāns, President of the BSPC, emphasized the need of deepening the parliamentary cooperation in the Baltic Sea Area, the crisis in Ukraine and the current situation of the refugees. Mr Vucāns referred to his contribution to the Nordic Council in the previous year, stressing that the cooperation between the BSPC and the Nordic Council has been a true success story. “Our cooperation has further intensified this year, when the President of the Nordic Council, Mr Höskuldur Thórhallsson, and the Nordic Council delegation attended the BSPC’s 24 th annual conference in Rostock.” Referring to the conference in Rostock Mr Vucāns explained that it took place under the heading “Baltic Sea Region – A Role Model for Innovation in Social- and Healthcare”. “Even if we dealt mainly with questions of innovation in social- and healthcare, the question of cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region of course played a key role in this year’s conference again. First and foremost, the crisis in Ukraine was again on our agenda. In our resolution we welcomed “the agreements concluded in Minsk, which may lead to a peaceful solution of the conflict…” and insisted on their “thorough and unwavering implementation and appeal to the parties to provide comprehensive support to the work of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe”. We also dealt with another topical issue, namely the refugee crisis, especially with regard to the social and health aspects of the situation. Expressing our solidarity with the refugees, which are forced to flee their homelands, and being aware of the big challenge to secure a safe residence we called on the governments in the Baltic Sea Region, the Council of Baltic Sea States, the World Health Organisation and the EU to ensure the decent treatment of the refugees especially concerning housing and healthcare. It is important that we strengthen our dialogue on this issue in the Nordic and Baltic Sea region, as the Baltic Sea Region, from one side, is home to some of the most important actors and facilitators in the conflict in Syria, but on the other side, it is a real area of accommodation in Europe for significant amount of the Syrian refugees. When we discussed cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region in our this year’s conference, the cooperation with Russia was a key aspect. Therefore the contribution of Mr Thórhallsson in this issue was very important. BSPC expects, that all Baltic Sea States will make their efforts to ensure that the Baltic Sea Region will continue to be a region of intensive cooperation and good, peaceful neighbourliness. To achieve that we will use all the opportunities of parliamentary, governmental and social exchange and dialogue. For this reason we also call for a resumption of the ministerial meetings of the Council of the Baltic Sea States. This will foster, in our opinion, the dialogue and strengthen cooperation.” Detailing the priorities of the Latvian BSPC Presidency, Mr Vucans stated that it will focus on education and the labour market, and the synergy between them. “As both are the cornerstones of wellbeing in the region, the Latvian Presidency has made those both issues very prominent in the BSPC Work Programme for the time period 2015 – 2016. It is our goal to find political answers to questions such as how to ensure an effective collaboration between the labour market and education; what policy measures to apply in order to promote investment; how to deal with youth unemployment and ability of the labour force, et cetera.” Concluding his remarks he asserted: “BSPC is active in a variety of fields and that is both because we hope to contribute to the wellbeing of our citizens and because we believe that we help drive concrete cooperation in the region, ultimately contributing to a safe and secure Baltic Sea Region. In my opinion it is very important and helpful for progress in several fields, if we bundle our common interests and further deepen the Parliamentary cooperation between Nordic Council and Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference.”

BSPC President Jānis Vucāns has addressed the particpants of the 7 th Barents Parliamentary Conference in Helsinki, Finland on 29 September 2015. The BSPC President spoke to the parliamentarians and invited guests in a session on “Environmental issues including climate change – Today and future cooperation in the environmental sector”. In his speech Mr Vucāns underlined the necessity of cooperation at parliamentary level and especially in the field of climate change: “The Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference has again highlighted in its annual conference four weeks ago the utmost importance of intense cooperation and good, peaceful neighbourliness. This includes the necessity of strengthening the cooperation in the Northern Dimension, for a stable foundation of relations and cooperation between each and every regional organisation and format. In the current period of time, cooperation at parliamentary level has intrinsic value because such cooperation involves the elected representatives of the citizens of the participating countries. The Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference has placed a special emphasis on environmental issues in many conferences. Our generation has a special responsibility to prevent a disastrous development of the ongoing climate change. Since 30 years the climate change is one of the fundamental political challenges in the world.” He underlined that climate change is a permanent issue for the BSPC since several years among others in the framework of its Working Groups on Energy and Climate Change as well as on Green Growth and Energy Efficiency. The BSPC President stressed the importance of a binding climate agreement for all states parties at the World Climate Conference in Paris at the end of this year. With a view to the regional level he equally called for an intensive cooperation and political exchange, among others between the Council of the Baltic Sea States, the Helsinki Commission and the BSPC. Mr Vucāns expressed the BSPC’s explicit support for the CBSS project BALTIC 21, which tackles the issue of climate change. With regard to the Barents Parliamentary Conference he pointed out: “In my opinion it is important and helpful for progress in several environmental fields if we – the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference and the Barents Parliamentary Conference – bundle our common interests on environmental issues.”

In preparation of the 24 th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference in Rostock on 30 August – 1 September 2015, the BSPC’s Observer at HELCOM has published her report on HELCOM-related developments and activities. The Report can be downloaded on the Rapporteurs’ webpage .

In preparation of the 24 th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference in Rostock on 30 August – 1 September 2015, the BSPC’s Rapporteurs on Integrated Maritime Policy, MP Jochen Schulte and MP Jörgen Pettersson have published their report on developments in the field of Integrated Maritime Policy since their renewed appointment as co-rapporteurs at last year’s BSPC conference in Olsztyn. The Report can be downloaded on the Rapporteurs’ webpage .

In preparation of the 24 th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference in Rostock on 30 August – 1 September 2015, the BSPC Working Group on Innovation in Social- and Healthcare has published its Final Report on its activities throughout the two-year mandate of the WG as well as on its political recommendations for the conference. The WG Chairman, Ms Olaug Bollestad, will present the Final Report at the conference in Rostock. The report contains two parts: the printed Volume I entails the main conclusions of the WG, challenges and potentials it sees as well as political recommendations in the field of social- and healthcare. Volume II is a complementary addition to the Final Report, providing an in-depth overview of the activities of the WG, the expert presentations received, and the homework it compiled in preparation of its meetings, and – for now – is an online-version only. Both volumes can be downloaded on the Working Group’s webpage .

The BSPC Working Group on Innovation in Social- and Healthcare came together on the Aland Islands on 11-12 June for its sixths and final WG meeting. After thorough two-day deliberations the WG members agreed on the Final Report of their activities and conclusions, as well as on their political recommendations, which are incorporated into the draft resolution of the 24 th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference, to be held in Rostock 30 August – 1 September. After the meeting the WG members met with Ms Britt Lundberg, the Speaker of the Aland Parliament. The Final Report of the Working Group can be accessed on the Working Group’s webpage .

The former Chairman of the BSPC Working Group on Innovation in Social- and Healthcare, Latvian Member of Parliament and Minister of Defense Raimonds Vejonis has been elected President of his country. The Chairman of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference and President of the Landtag Mecklenburg-Vorpommern has expressed her congratulations to the long-standing Member of the Standing Committee.

The highest Executive Committee of the BSPC, led by Chairman Sylvia Bretschneider, met for the second time in 2015 in the Ozeaneum of Stralsund, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, on 29 th May. Delegations from Åland-Islands, Baltic Assembly, Estonia, Finland, German Bundestag, Hamburg, Kaliningrad, Latvia, Lithuania, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Nordic Council, Russian Federation and St. Petersburg participated in the meeting. The work focused on the preparation for the 24 th annual conference, which will take place in Rostock-Warnemünde from 30 th August – 1 st September 2015. The Themes discussed at the annual conference will be cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region, cross-border cooperation in healthcare, health economy as well as the question of the sustainable and accessible social- and healthcare at the crossroads of the healthcare provision, the demographic shift and shrinking budgets in the individual states. Therefore, the conclusions of the current BSPC-Working Group “Innovation in Social and Healthcare” will be especially exploited. At the beginning of the Standing Committee Meeting the Minister of Labour, Gender Equality and Social Affairs Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Ms Birgit Hesse and the President of the University of Applied Sciences Stralsund, Prof. Dr. Falk Höhn and spoke about healthcare in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Minister Hesse focused in her speech the challenges of a sustainable and accessible healthcare in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The trend seems to go towards an urban-rural divide. On the one hand, there are the well-supplied urban areas, where even special options are easily accessible for all. And on the other hand, there are the sparsely populated rural areas, where it is already hard to ensure basic services in some parts. That is why, regional solutions are needed. Therefore, the administrative district of Vorpommern-Greifswald became a model region to identify the potentials and possibilities of individual regions in order to be able to improve medical care in a targeted way. To improve the current situation, measures to provide the infrastructure and to simplify the accessibility to care centres have already been taken, for example a regular bus service or the chance to order a minibus to realize a visit at a doctor. Prof. Dr. Höhn presented in his speech the University of Apllied Sciences with a focus on international cooperation in the area of medical scientific fields. He declared that worldwide contacts to more than 70 other universities and faculties exist, especially in the Baltic Sea Region. To tackle the challenges of the field of medical technology, new courses like medical information management / eHealth as well as medical informatics are offered at the School of Applied Science. Prof. Dr. Höhn also presented some completed scientific cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region, like the Telemedicine Network to improve the healthcare provision for tumours in the Euroregion of Pomerania. These two speeches showed the participants of the meeting both, the political and the scientific and the political, views of the future sustainability of healthcare in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Furthermore, the Standing Committee discussed the possibilities for the integration of the Youth Forum in the annual conference and the results and the implementation of last year’s resolution.

As current chairman of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference Sylvia Bretschneider actively participated in the 4 th Northern Dimension Parliamentary Forum in Reykjavik, Iceland, 10 th – 11 th May. In the second session of the Parliamentary Forum “Green energy – opportunities and challenges”, Ms Bretschneider gave a statement in which she explained that there is a wide support for the “greening of the economy” at local, national, regional and global level. Even though, the transition to a greener economic paradigm is going on too slow. Ms Bretschneider stressed that the BSPC therefore launched a Working Group on Green Growth and Energy Efficiency in 2011 to find answers to the question on what can be done to increase the speed of progress towards a greener paradigm. She pointed out that the results of the Working Group were taken into the 22 nd annual Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference and its Resolution in 2012. So, as follow-up, there is still a main focus on Green Growth and its effects in the Baltic Sea Region. One impact is for example the participation of many Baltic Sea States in transnational projects. In the subsequent round table discussion, the BSPC chairman underlined: “Green Growth concerns everybody. It can be achieved through improved resource management, including reduced pollution and increased productivity, where long-term benefits replace short-term profits. New and green solutions must replace old and unsustainable habits.” The picture shows the Speaker of Althingi Mr Einar K. Guðfinnsson and the BSPC Chair Ms Sylvia Bretschneider.